Need for Speed: Underground 2 for Windows PC

I've never been that much into racing games, but I think Need For Speed Underground 2 is awesome. It combines the best elements of the Gran Turismo and Midnight Club series of PlayStation 2 games into what is sort of like a role playing racing game. Imagine being inside the movie The Fast and the Furious and that's what this game is like.

In this game you get to first drive around in a Nissan 350Z as you run a few errands for a local racing baroness. This is designed mostly to familiarize yourself with the game and give you a taste of what’s to come. After this pseudo training session, you start out by purchasing your own much weaker car. Your job is to get out on the street racing circuit and earn respect and cash by racing other drivers.

The entire city is at your disposal and you may freely roam the streets in search of races. On the screen you will have a small overhead map that has colored dots to mark destinations for the garage, parts dealers, race locations, and more. You have a cell phone with you and your agent will leave voicemails with info on new races and locations. As you get farther into the game, new sections of the city will open up to you, and eventually you will end up racing around a pretty big map.

Some people have complained about the large map and how you have to drive to different locations for races. Honestly, it only takes a minute to get from one place to another, and it is always good practice for you in between the actual timed races. Since a lot of the races actually take place on sectioned off portions of the same streets you drive, it doesn't hurt to be familiar with the territory.

There are different types of races in this game and you must master them all to compete. The most common is the basic circuit race where you go a few laps around a marked off section of the street. You also do an occasional drag race where you must demonstrate your skill in shifting. Basically, all you do with the drag race is shift up when a little green marker appears on the screen. There are also skill test races where you demonstrate your special driving abilities, like powersliding through most of the race.

After you make your way up the ladder on the racing circuit, you will eventually get corporate sponsors and then you start to earn the big money. You can use this cash to upgrade your current car or buy a new one. This aspect of the game is almost exactly like the vehicle modification and purchase system in the Gran Turismo series of games. A ton of different cars are featured, so your options are endless. The farther up you get in the game, you will have to buy faster cars just to be able to compete.

The graphics in this game are absolutely stunning. The city looks very realistic and all the streets are laid out like a real city would be. When you crash into someone, the viewing angle will change and you get a slow motion look at the crash. I still laugh every time it happens because each crash is different. I once put a cargo truck up in the air after impact. Each car is finely detailed and you can do all kinds of body modifications to trick out your ride. A lot of detail was put into the look of this game.

The sound is also quite awesome and it enhances the game. A soundtrack full of real music fills the air as you race. Okay, the music is mostly hip hop stuff so you may argue whether or not it is real music since it mostly consists of synthesized beats and sampled sounds from other bands, but I won't get into that. The music is all pumping and loud and goes along with the look and style of the game. The sound effects are all well done and vary depending on the car you drive.

My only complaint about the whole game is the lack of realism when it comes to damage. No matter how many times you crash, your car will not even take a dent. I can understand how the developers of this game didn't want to work in the whole aspect of getting your car repaired, but it does sort of take the realism out when you can deliberately smash into your opponents just to take them out of the race. Yeah, I play dirty, but there is no penalty for it, so why not?

In short, Need for Speed Underground 2 is awesome. It looks great, sounds great, and is a hell of a lot of fun to play. I'm not big into racing games, but I love this one.